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What's the most powerful mac build today?
- Thread starter rueyloon
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Interesting question, especially since you explicitly allow Hacks.
I wonder if the winner will be lower than what Windows or Linux supports, due to Apple OSX limitations.
88 virtual cores is high end mainstream in the workstation world today, and 1 TiB or more RAM and quad GPUs as well. If you look at x64 server systems - 144 virtual cores, 6 TiB RAM for mid-range quad socket systems.
Since no Apple system has ever supported that many cores or that much RAM, I wonder what the real Apple OSX limits are.
the CPU in the 2013 12 core (Xeon E5-2697 v2) is already the top of the line for that generation (and so the best supported by OS X). if you can build a hack with two of those, that would likely be the fastest you could get (in total CPU crunching ability). that would potentially support up to 1.5TB RAM.
(OS X provides approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes)
if OS X will recognize 24 each real and virtual cores.
the best video card currently natively supported by OS X is the Radeon RX 460. not a killer there (but better than what is in the nMP). if you want to deal with CUDA and Nvidia drivers, the GTX Titan X. the upside, in a hack, possible to have like 4 of each. don't know where Mac OS scaling comes to an end. but if your application supports it...
(OS X provides approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes)
if OS X will recognize 24 each real and virtual cores.
the best video card currently natively supported by OS X is the Radeon RX 460. not a killer there (but better than what is in the nMP). if you want to deal with CUDA and Nvidia drivers, the GTX Titan X. the upside, in a hack, possible to have like 4 of each. don't know where Mac OS scaling comes to an end. but if your application supports it...
Technically a hackintosh isn't a Mac so they would we excluded by the simple definition of the work Mac, which is short for Macintosh, that you used in your question.
Technically (my opinion) the OP did not ask about a Mac, but used the term "mac" (fairly generic, eh?), and specifically included hackintosh, so, the question is a valid one that might be re-stated:
What is the most powerful computer hardware that can run OS X?
What is the most powerful computer hardware that can run OS X?
The RX460 obviously not the "best", but just the newest. I am quite sure it can't beat the OOTB (and flashable) 7970 in most area.
Well, if you get rid of macOS on a Mac and solely run on Windows, do you still call it a Mac?
A Mac is defined mostly by software.
But I get your point, the question should be rephrased to 'the most powerful macOS computer' or something like that.
I personally tends to define a Mac by hardware.
A Mac solely running Windows still a Mac, still designed by Apple, officially sell it as a Mac, and able to run macOS natively. Apple actually provide bootcamp for users to install Windows, give us the choice of OS. So, why not call it a Mac?
To OP, you may also need to define most powerful for what. Some workflow benefits more from CPU single thread performance, some others benefit more from the multi thread performance. Unluckily, you can't get the best of both at the same time.
Even on the GPU side, different usage may result in a different GPU(s) choice as well.
Over at Tonymac the someone has built a Dual Socket 32 Core system.
Asus Z10PE-D8 WS Motherboard
E5-2683 v4 CPU (16 Core) x 2
NVME Boot Disk
64Gb of ECC DDR4 RAM ( Board can take more )
Only appears to have a 660GT Card though which I am sure could replace with a better card.
Seems to be a 'does this work' rig though rather then an actual work rig and has various parts that can be flaky.
Which is always the potential when building this type of hack.
The Golden Builds tend to be more iMac spec with Quad Skylake.
Probably asking on the wrong site this sort of thing though as is predominantly genuine Mac and if you want extreme then really need to look at a Hackintosh instead.
Hopefull as the E5 v4 CPU's work along with newer drivers seen in 10.12.2 beta's then possibly a new Mac Pro coming.
If the E5 v$'s come through then potentially looking at 22Core CPU's available in a single socket.
Asus Z10PE-D8 WS Motherboard
E5-2683 v4 CPU (16 Core) x 2
NVME Boot Disk
64Gb of ECC DDR4 RAM ( Board can take more )
Only appears to have a 660GT Card though which I am sure could replace with a better card.
Seems to be a 'does this work' rig though rather then an actual work rig and has various parts that can be flaky.
Which is always the potential when building this type of hack.
The Golden Builds tend to be more iMac spec with Quad Skylake.
Probably asking on the wrong site this sort of thing though as is predominantly genuine Mac and if you want extreme then really need to look at a Hackintosh instead.
Hopefull as the E5 v4 CPU's work along with newer drivers seen in 10.12.2 beta's then possibly a new Mac Pro coming.
If the E5 v$'s come through then potentially looking at 22Core CPU's available in a single socket.
Since the MacPro5,1 came in dual-Xeon configs, and supports Sierra, this is nonsense.
Of course, it may depend what he's defining 'Xeons' to be. If there's no CPU microcode support in macOS for the Xeon he's trying to use, it won't work.
I thought so too. I use MacPro5,1. When I said this, the answer I got back is the new OSX still supports old Macs with dual Xeon, but not newer Xeons in dual-CPU configuration.
So this is possible? I meant, if I built a dual-Xeon machine and tried to install the latest OSX, it is possible to fail?
Sorry I am totally a non-expert of issues like this. I would not imagine I would consider a hackintosh a few months ago.
It is perfectly possible for it too fail. You need to choose your motherboard carefully. Best thing is to check a more dedicated hack site as they have more details on Hackintoshes then will find at macrumors.
Best thing to do is find a thread where someone else already has a dual cpu board working.
For instance someone already has some Asus board working yet another asus board was a non starter.
You will find however that MOST Hackinstohes are basically the fabled xMac, where is basically an iMac in a tower with slots, so Quad Skylakes seem to be what most people build.
There are some people out there on X99/C216 boards but few and far between. They tend to be the more experienced people as well that have been doing this for years and can develop own solutions to get round issues.
The RX 460 is much weaker than the HD7970 (D700): http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-460-vs-AMD-HD-7970/3641vs2163
I don't understand why people wish to create a more powerful "Mac Pro" when they simply built the most powerful computer they can afford and run Windows 10. Windows 10 runs everything just fine instead of worrying about shoehorning an OS that may or may not have driver support. I know people have had bad experiences in the past and in all honestly I may bash Windows sometimes too, but I've never really had problems. I used to joke that at least with a blue screen it would give me an error message I can't decipher vs the kernel panic that doesn't say anything.
For a truly flexible workflow, I stopped comparing macOS to Windows. They may look different and run differently, but your result is to get the work done. I don't run any Mac only applications so I am not dependent on one platform, though for personal use I do enjoy using the Mac more than Windows, but on my more powerful machines, I run the OS that runs it all which is Windows.
I would reevaluate why you need to a more powerful computer and why you need it to run an OS that depends on third-party support to get it to "work" to do the things you need.
Or are you simply trying to pose a theoretical question, then my question are you the kind of person that specs the Mac Pro to the maximum just so you can? Then why does it even matter? A hackintosh by definition is not a Mac. The most powerful computer you can buy is the computer that you can afford.
For a truly flexible workflow, I stopped comparing macOS to Windows. They may look different and run differently, but your result is to get the work done. I don't run any Mac only applications so I am not dependent on one platform, though for personal use I do enjoy using the Mac more than Windows, but on my more powerful machines, I run the OS that runs it all which is Windows.
I would reevaluate why you need to a more powerful computer and why you need it to run an OS that depends on third-party support to get it to "work" to do the things you need.
Or are you simply trying to pose a theoretical question, then my question are you the kind of person that specs the Mac Pro to the maximum just so you can? Then why does it even matter? A hackintosh by definition is not a Mac. The most powerful computer you can buy is the computer that you can afford.
ah. interesting. then swap in an 8GB R9 390x. hoping for RX 480 support by June. even if not "fastest", true native support and cost and energy efficiency tips it for me.
And Logic Pro X. And especially Xcode, since there is no substitution for this one.
More to the point it would be running Windows. As a ex-long time Windows user and developer I don't want to go back. I've tried Win10 on a few occasions for weeks at a time to see if I could but it's not for me. There's more to an OS than just it runs an app fine.
OSX is unix-inside, and this is crucial for many scientific calculations. Of course Linux can also do all such calculations, but it doesn't run Photoshop/Illustrator/Keynote. That's the power of OSX for what I do.
I heard Win10 can now also run Linux commands, but the environment is not mature enough yet. Maybe one day Windows will become a legitimate option, but it not now.
I heard Win10 can now also run Linux commands, but the environment is not mature enough yet. Maybe one day Windows will become a legitimate option, but it not now.
For most people, Windows is definately a legitimate option. You have to create some pretty restrictive constraints to make it not an option.
On my Windows systems, I have the bash shell for local use, VMware VMs running Linux, and ssh windows to the big Linux servers and VMs, and RDP to the big Windows servers.
Some of our people have Apple laptops. They do little locally, have VMware VMs for Windows, and ssh windows to the big Linux servers and VMs, and RDP to the big Windows servers.
A few use Apple OSX for email/web, and have Windows desktops for all of the real work (but again, that's VMware, ssh and RDP). If Apple had an affordable desktop that could drive three 4K monitors, some of these folks would probably shift.
Please help me.
I see this as a one word post without any context. How do I get a "view by threads" so that I can see what post you're calling "redundant".